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Book Design
Artigo Oitavo (Article n.8)
Interweaving poetry and music

'Artigo Oitavo' is Etel Frota's first book in which she combined her lifelong interests in the written, spoken, and sung word by producing a poetry book including a CD in which selected poems were recorded with musical accompaniment by a team of musicians, singers and actors.

The title 'Artigo Oitavo' is derived from well-known Amazonian poet Thiago de Mello's work, and the poems revolve around love and pain, spirit and body, subjects that Frota treats with frankness, delicacy, and raw beauty.

The cover of the book is a metaphor for the long-term process through which the book was conceived and an homage to the 'seringueira', the Amazon’s rubber tree: in order to collect the resin used in the manufacture of the rubber, the natives inflict V-shaped cuts on the trunks from which the resin drains for many hours before being collected and processed. A process that can be compared to how Frota's poetry slowly emerges, as if drained over time. The design of the inside is divided in two parts. The poetry section is typeset calmly in a fairly traditional way. In the lyrics section each spread is designed in a particular way to reinforce the idea behind the words, through the use of type and image.

Client: Etel Frota
Art Direction, Photography and Design